The Vampaneze Apprentice
by HatMaster
Summary: We have heard about how vampires fare in the world, and their opinion on the vampaneze, but what is it really like to be. . . a Vampaneze Apprentice? Yana, a slum girl, is adopted into the dark world of the night-hunters. Please reveiw.
1. The Theif

**I haven't really had an interest in vampire stories until recently, but I have had the urge to write a story about one for a couple of weeks now. Please tell me how it is. It is sort of a Darren Shan 'fan-fic', but I haven't used any of his characters or plot lines, merely the idea of the vampaneze. Instead of the human siding with the vampires, my character becomes one of the darker creatures of the night.**

The night was cold, and wind whistled through the alleyways and streets of the town. The girl looked over her shoulder and listened for footsteps. All was quiet, except for the constant howling of the wind, like a deathly whistle of the dead.

You couldn't be too careful in these parts of the town. Youth spent in the slums of the city had taught her that you must always be on your gaurd. People would attack children and steal the possesions they happened to have on them, and, more often than not, kill them for good measure. If you would do it, then someone else would. First rule of living in the bad parts of town; trust no-one, and pity none, not even yourself.

Yana loved this time of night; when all had gone to sleep, weary from begging, or working in the whore houses, and the streets were hers alone. Hers, and the serious crinimals. Petty theives did not hang around at this time; only people who hid in shadows to stop people who went past, and kill them for fun, or for money, prowled the street at this hour of night. Yana didn't really need to fear these people. Most wouldn't bother to stop a 12 year old girl like her; knowing she wouldn't have any money, but there were always those who would stop her for other. . . purposes.

Nethertheless, Yana sighed with releif when she found the ladder on the side of the house she had been looking for. The house was poorly made, but it had been built with a wooden ladder that climbed up the side of the house and lead onto the roof. Gratefully, Yana sped up the ladder, like a rat up a drainpipe, and clambered onto the roof. Up here, Yana couldn't smell the rotting stink of filth that covered the ground of the slums, and she didn't have to fear attack; she could see for miles across the twisting, unplanned roof system of the slums. In the distance was a bottle-kiln, it's top still giving off the faint glow of dying embers from a day of clay-baking.

Monnlight drenched the scene in a silver light and made everything seem beautiful and crisp. Yana was unacustommed to such beauty in her surroundings. She stared out out the pace where she had lived since she was 6. Her mother had abandoned her here; but she prefered to think of her in a good light. Her mother was the only good memory that she had to cling onto, she had never known her father.

She remembered the day though, when her mother had come home from work in the silk factory and put her head in her hands and began to cry. Yana had never seen her mother cry before. It was a sign that life was not going to be good from now on. Sure enough, in the following months food became scarce, hunger set in and Yana had to go out to the market to beg every day. Somedays a passing sympathiser would put a coin or bread into her hand, and she would eat that day: but most of the time, she would go hungry, and her mother would beat her. Then came the day she had been abandoned. Her mother had took her out to the city, and told her to beg in a new place. She said she would be back. Yana had begged all day and had earned 3 gold coins and two silver (she had never learned to count the money: or read for that matter). However, her mother never showed at the end of the day. Yana had tried to find her way home, but she couldn't. She had spent the money on food and had slept in an abandoned kiln with other homeless children. Her first night alone.

Since then, Yana had haunted the town at night. Night was her time. Other children would have perished; many did; but not Yana. She was a survivor. She developed a knack for creeping into houses in the darkness, whilst the occupants were sleeping, and stealing food, clothes, anything she needed, from beneath their noses. She slipped in and out of the houses like one of the spirits the other children talked about; the spirits that crept into your bedroom and took your soul from your mouth.

Yana shook herslef from her memories and concentrated on the task at hand. She stood up and looked around. There was a low roof next to this one that she could jump onto. She ran across the roof and leaped like a cat across the street below, and onto the other house. She tried to land lightly, so that she wouldn't wake up the people inside the house, but stumbled all the same. She tensed, then relaxed when she didn't hear anything.

Pressing an ear to the roof she listened for movement within. Through the thin, chipboard and slate roof, she could hear somebody moving around.

'No good' she growled to herself then ran and leaped onto the next roof. She ran as lightly as a mouse and leaped as gracefully as a cat. Yana took pride in the fact that she was the best child thief in this part of town. She felt like a true creature of the night when she leaped around the canopy of the slums, hunting for a house with sleeping occupants.

Finally, she found what she was looking for. The shanty below her was literally been rocked by the deep snores of a man inside. The occupant was obviously in a very deep sleep. Houses around here didn't have glass windows, so the occupants usually hammered nails into the window sill and hung carpets against the hole in the wall to deter people from climbing in. Yana looked around quickly from the roof. There was a brothel down the street, but that looked quiet at the moment, and there was nobody in the area that she could see. Quickly, she leaned down over the edge of the roof and looked at the window. She was surprised to see wooden shutters over the window, but she quickly prised them open with a smal tool she carried in her pocket. It had a small crowbar at one end, for opening and breaking things, and there was a small knife at the other end, for 'just in case'. As she had expected, there were nails hammered into the window-sill, their sharps points sticking up and glinting in the moonlight. This was no match for her. She reached further down over the edge of the roof and grabbed the hook inside the house, that used to keep the shutters closed. She took a breath, let her feet slip off the roof, and let her momentum swing her into the house.

She landed as quiety as a feather, and the man sleeping in the room didn't stir. She regarded her surroundings. It was the usual one room slum house; with bed, table and kitchen-cuboard area all in the same room. Moving quickly, she opened the kitchen cupboards and took the food she could find, (not much) and cramming a roll of bread into her mouth for now. She searched the room but found no money. Yana was puzzled, there should be a penny at least. Then she saw the floor was made of boards, nailed together. She slowly tried to lift each one, finally finding the one that did. Underneath, was a hollow, scraped in the ground and in that was glinting coins. She snatched them all, except one, which she left for the man to buy back the food he had lost. Yana didn't like to feel that she was completely ruining her victims, and condemming them to stravation. She knew theives that did that, but she got a guilty twinge whenever she stole from someone and this small act of kindness made her feel better.

Yanna opened the door to get out (the lock was on the inside). Her pockets were bulging with food and money. She left the house; but before she did, she couldn't help having a fun idea. Holding the door open, she pulled it back as far as it would go, then slammed it as hard as she could against the doorframe. There was a crashing bang, and a muffled cry from inside the house. Yana sped off through the winding dark streets, her stomach bubbling with exhillerated happiness and fear. She gave a strangled sort of giggle, and paused to watch the house she had just left. There was a lot shouting coming from inside, and suddenly the door flew man looked out; rage and fear plain on his face. Yana, laughed, then felt bad, then laughed again as she saw the man running the opposite direction; looking for her.

As she climbed up to the roof of the houses again, to find her sleeping place (a blocked off chimmney breast) she didn't see a dark figure standing in the gloom between two houses. It looked at her scrambling away across the roof and silently laughed to itself. The figure shook its head and smiled before slipping away down the alleyway again.


	2. The Vampire

Dawn crept into the streets of the town and painted the streets a rosy glow. Yana could see her breath fogging in the air as she walked towards the center of the town, where the bottle-kiln waited for another day of hard labour. The houses here were nicer than in the bad areas of town, but they were still pretty small and cramped. Rows and rows of identical brick houses; four houses joined onto another was a common sight. Yana kew that people who lived in these houses were called 'Working Class', and that the houses were often shared by several families at one time.

Yana made her way past these streets; where hungry dogs sat in the road, and tired-looking women washed clothes in water buckets by hand. Lots of small children came out of the houses as she past and joined her in walking to the bottle-kiln. She recognised most of them; they were her work colleages. Together, she and the other children kept the pottery factory ticking over; keeping machinery working; cleaning the chimneys; climbing into the pottery ovens to fetch out bowls and bricks that had fallen in too far.

She saw a new boy that hadn't been on the working team yesterday. He looked about five years old, probably the first time he had been sent out to work. Families started their children early around here, they needed to; as soon as a child could walk and talk and carry things then it was off to work to earn money for the family.

At least they have a family. thought Yana sadly.

She walked over to the new boy and spat on her hand, as was the custom. She held it out for the boy to do the same thing and shake it. He merely looked confused.

'Don't you know the kiln-children's shake?'

The boy shook his head.

She sighed 'You have a lot to learn kid. Just spit on your hand and shake mine.'

'Why?'

'Because. . . because. . .' Yana was flummoxed. She had no idea why, or when the custom had started.

'It seems unsanitary to me. 'Cleanliness is next to Godliness'' he recited. Yana stared. Who, in this part of town, was worried about being sanitary?

'And anyway' he continued 'I'm not allowed to touch girls; my mother said so'

'Why not, kid?'

'It's evil for a boy to touch a girl, even if he doesn't mean it. My mother doesn't even talk to men. Thats how sin entered the world; she says.'

Now Yana understood. He was obviously from one of those religious-nut families. She knew people did beleive these things, but Yana couldn't understand why. She didn't beleive in God. Where had God been when she was in trouble? Anyway, she thought, all religious people were either rich spoilt upper-class with anything they wanted; God was easy for them to beleive in, or they were some crazy nut-job living squalor, but convinced they were better than anyone else because they spouted quotes from their religious-text. Yanas conscious gave a guilty squirm at her thoughts. She remembered the Christians that had found her sleeping in the streets, in the great winter of '45, snow slowly piling on her. She had been about to give up and go to sleep when they had arrived; given her a blanket, and soup, to keep warm, and blessed her. If it wasn't for them, she probably would have been dead.

The boy was still looking at her.

'Whats your name kid?' she said, coming back to earth.

'Peter'

'Oh, OK'

They didn't speak again until they reached the gates of the Factory. Yana always looked up at the smoke billowing out out of the big chimney into the air. She liked to think it was the breath of some giant monster lying underneath the ground in slumber. The billowing and undulatiung motion of the smoke was kind of hypnotic. Yana felt soothed. When they reached the factory doors they were split up into teams to go to different parts of the factory. Today, Yana was put on chimmney sweeping. It was a job she hardly got to do, and it was hard, but she enjoyed it more than running the machines. There was less of a chance to cruch a leg and get horribly crippled. Yana knew someone that that had happened to. He had been oiling a mixing machine, used to mix the clay, when it had been turned on by a careless worker. The rotors had started turning, and before he could escape, he had been mixed in with the clay. It had been horrible. When they dragged him out, he looked like a clay model of a boy; a model that had been twisted and squashed. His arms had been mangled into different positions, and his leg had been bent in two places, at wrong angles.

Shuddering, Yana followed the other children to the bottle-kiln that needed sweeping. She was friendly with the other children who were working on her team, and soon they were laughing and joking with eachother as they swept the chimmney of the kiln.

The bricks of the wall and roof were hot from the last baking, and Yanas hands were blistering from the heat. The rope that held her to the roof was scratchy and kept getting in her way. She delicately sweeped the bricks infront of her, coughing as soot cascaded down on her, covering her with soot.

'Haha. Yana, you look like you've been struck by lightning!' shouted one of the boys on the other side of the kiln.

Yana grinned. Her usually blonde hair was stiff and grey with soot, and ash covered her face.

'I look like I've aged into an old woman, more like' she said.

The other chimmney sweeps laughed. One, a 10 year old girl girl called Emma, suddenly gasped, and Yana spun her head round, twisting her neck, expecting to see Emma falling to the floor. But, thank goodness, she wasn't.

'What was that for?' gasped the boy, 'I thought you were falling to your death at least'

Emma smiled. 'I just remembered something when you were talking about Yana looking like an old woman'

'What?'

Emma looked at the kiln roof. 'We're finished now aren't we? Come down and I'll tell you about it.'

Yana and four boys crowded around Emma in a huddle. They sat on the outside of the kiln, and she told her tale.

'I heard it from a girl my family shares a house with. She's a maid for one of the big rich people over the west side of town. So, she goes into the house of this old woman (thats what made me remember it), who lives alone, in a big old mansion. It's still dark early in the moring, and the maid is scared. See, the woman usually rings for assistance in getting out of bed, washing and dressing and such, right?-

They nodded.

- well, today she doesn't, and the maid gets worried about what has happened. She was old see, and she mighta died during the night. Anyway, the maid knocks, and goes into the room. She says the woman was dead alright. She was lying in bed, not breathing, so the maid takes the chance to take some things. She looks in the drawers and finds jewelry. -

Emma held up a finger, with a ring on it.

- She gave me this. Anyway, she opens the cupboard to look inside. And next thing she knows, she's been pushed to the floor hard, and a person jumps over her. She says he moved faster than what should be right, looked back at her, and jumped out the window.'

Silence greeted her story.

'She was probably lying' said one of the boys.

'Nuh-uh' pouted Emma 'She swore it was the truth. And anyway -

She leaned closer and whispered

- I'll tell you what. The doctors took the body, and you know what they found? The body had no blood in it to spill. All of it had been taken.'

She nodded significantly. The children all shared dark looks. There had been stories like this going round the town for months. Every few months a new person would be found dead, lying pale and cold in their bed. Their blood drained.

At first nobody had beleived, but soon, there were so many stories that at least part of it had to be true.

'I wonder who is doing it?' mused a boy.

Yana jumped as a smaller boy spoke behind me. It was Peter.

'It's not a who, it's a what. The thing that hunts the people is called a vampire. It is a demon from the devil himself and is preying on humans to punish us for our sins.'

The children all looked at him sceptically. Then turned away to discuss it. They had all heard of vampires. The spirits that sucked the soul out of peoples mouths when they were sleeping; could only come out at night; and were super quick. But nobody had ever seen one.

What ever it was that was doing these things; it was scaring half the town to bed in the nights.

The foreman suddenly shouted at them to get to work. They jumped, not wishing to feel the lash of his whip, and got to work.

Yana couldn't help thinking more about the vampire as she worked. Master of the night, she imagined herself as a vampire, leaping across the roofs of the town; faster than anybody could follow with their eye. Then she shuddered at the thought of sucking peoples souls out.

Sure, they were just a scary story, but vampires made for nice daydreams.


	3. Vampire Hunting

Yanas night time exploits took on a new dimension from then on. She couldn't help imagining herself as a vampire as she leaped from house to house. She imagined breaking into peoples houses, to feed on the souls of the people sleeping within. She wasn't sure if this made her evil; it was just a day dream.

News of another attack had come the day before, but this one caused more stir than normal. This time, the victim had survived.

He was an old man, who lived alone, like most of the victims of the murderer. He had burst into the pub screaming about demons early in the morning. He had been calmed down with difficulty and, under the influence of several beers, recalled the events which had lead to him running into the pub.

His name was Fredrick Bones, and he had been walking home from work as a banker. Taking a short cut through the town park, which Yana had only seen once, he had seen a dark figure flit into the shadows of the wood in the park. Fredrick had ran for the exit of the park, knowing what kind of people would be there at night. The person had seemed to dissapear, then dropped down from the trees, 20 feet up, infront of Fredrick. -

Here, accounts varied. Some said that the person was a tall woman, with blue hair, and flames in her eyes; others said that the murderer was a jolly youth, whose lips were stained red with blood. No two stories agreed. However, they had all said the same thing afterwards.

- Fred had shouted and tried to run, but the attacker was behind him in a blink. The person had held him down, made a cut with their nails over the vein in his neck and bent down. To feed?

Yana had heard the story from Emma, at work. Peter had his usual dire prononcement to make; about how God shall strike down the wicked and sinful, and spare the faithful; but Yana listen to Emmas stories with a hungry interest. The more she had thought about it, the more she wanted to meet this vampire. A glimpse would suffice. Yana desperately wanted to see what a vampire looked like, and maybe speak to him.

She had spent the last month of nights hunting the city for the killer, but she had had no luck. Normally there was about 3 months inbetween each attack, so she hadn't been too disheartened. But now, with the last attack 12 weeks behind, she was getting impatient to catch the vampire before another 3 months of waiting. The hunter had become the hunted, she thought grimly, and then concentrated, as she walked across a plank of wood between two houses. She made it with ease. She had always had better balance than her fellow urchins; she was stronger than most, and faster too. She looked around at the forest of tiles and the criss-crossing veins of streets between the house, in the hope of seeing the vampire. The moon was behind a cloud tonight and it's light had been turned into a silver smudge in the sky. A light prickle of rain hit her face. Yana turned her head to face the sky and let the water hit her in the face pleasantly. This was her favourite way to be: in the darkness, with a refreshing prickle of rain and wind on her skin.

There, that would refresh her and keep her awake. She jumped a few more houses and then clambered up a drainpipe to get to the top of a two-storey house which would give her a good veiw of the surroundings. She was going into the better part of town now, where the vampire had struck the last four was a metal plate on the chimney, and it reflected the night sky. Yana Looked into it, and a small blonde girl looked back out. She had never felt like other people, no matter how ordinary she looked. She sighed and looked away again. Yana peered out to the streets below, and observed the passing people. She needed a person on their own. The vampire targeted people who had no company. She sat for maybe an hour, occasionally rubbing her hands to keep them warm, before she saw something hopeful.

Yana was about to fall asleep, despite of the cold, when she saw a figure walking down the street below her. He was stalking down the cobbled road with the grace of a cat. Yana had enough experience trying to creep down alleyways as quiety as possible, to know that this figure was an expert at it. It's footsteps made no noise and it was constantly listening; turning it's head from side to side like an animal.

It was nearing a gas lamp set in the road, and as it past underneath it,Yana gasped. The figure had been thrown into sharp releif and clarity for a second and Yana had seen what it looked like. There was no doubt it was not a human; Yana had seen its deep purple skin, and blood red hair lit by the street lamp. At Yanas gasp, the figure had stopped, and Yana quickly backed up the roof, so it wouldn't see her. The stories she had heard about the vampire were circling around her head. Blood drained. Super quick. Haunting the night.

Yana cursed herself for her stupidity. It was utter madness to go after a vampire. What had she been thinking? She had to get out of here quick. Yana crawled over to the edge of the roof and scurried down the drainpipe again. A noise above her. Her blood chilled. She had heard the scrape of someone standing on a lose tile up above her.

How had he got up there so fast!

Yanas courage failed, and she let go of the drainpipe, landing on the roof below her. She stumbled, fell over and panicked. She got up, expecting to see the vampires face above her. She didn't stop to see. She ran across the roof and jumped across an alleyway. Behind her she heard a thump of someone landing just behind her. Her heart pounded, and fear made her breath catch in her throat. She jumped across to another roof. She started to cry, and hated herself for it, but she couldn't stop. She was going to die. Yana hadn't been paying attention to where she had been going and realised with dread that she had come to a place where there were no more roofs to jump onto. She then realised with shame that she had wet herself. Cold air chilled her to the bone. It wasn't like the grand stories she had heard from other children. The hero, no matter how much trouble they were in, never wet themselves with fear.

She turned slowly and saw the vampires figure at the end of the roof. Her heart seemed to contract in fear, almost hurting her. Soon it would stop beating all together.

He was walking towards her, slowly, and the moon was behind him, so all she could see was a dark sillohette. Her breath came in ragged gulps; from fear, or from her recent flight of fear, she couldn't tell. The vampire came closer and she could see his features. His purple skin merged with the blackness of the night, and his blood-red hair sat on his head, sticking up in tufts like a hedgehog. She noticed that he had red eyes and fingernails as well. A true creature of the night. Like nothing she had ever seen. At that moment, fear and envy leaped up inside her like a flame fanned to life. She had thought that she was the master of the night; what a fool she had been; she was just a human, she was the prey.

She looked over the edge of the roof. If she jumped, she would die, but at least he wouldn't be able to drink her blood and steal her soul. Her soul would go on. Yana hoped she had been good enough in life to deserve what was afterwards; but she probably hadn't. She took a quick step to the edge of the roof and prepared to spring. She saw the vampire frown behind her, and suddenly move fowards.

'No!' she cried. She hesitated, and then stepped into thin air. Air rushed past her ears as she fell to her death.

Or so she thought. At the same time she had shouted 'no', the vampire had yelled exactly the same thing. Yana felt her fall abruptly halt and she almost choked as the collar of her shirt was pulled painfully tight. She swung above the ground sickeningly. She looked up, expecting to see her shirt caught on a hook, or lose window-sill and holding her up.

Instead, she saw a purple skinned hand holding tightly onto her shirt. Her eyes moved up and looked into the vampires violet-coloured face. Her brown eyes locked with the blood-red eyes of the night-hunter. The vampire smiled.

Yana screamed.


	4. Tainted Blood

The vampire held on tight to Yana, even when she was screaming. He stretched down his other purple hand and slapped Yana on the face. Yana, shocked, stopped screaming.

'Shut up!' he growled.

There was already a small crowd of late night drunks and crinimals gathering below where Yana was hanging. One or two were pointing and shouting at Yana. They probably couldn't see the vampire. His purple skin made him hard to see against the night sky. One of the men had evidently decided that Yana was in trouble and needed help; and had begun to climb up to the roof of the house.

The vampire cursed, and quickly hauled Yana up onto the roof. Her shirt collar dug tighter into her throat and she gagged for a moment. The moment the vampire had pulled her up onto the roof, she stood on her feet and tried to run. The vampire suddenly grabbed her hand, and smiled.

'No. You've seen me; I can not let you go.'

Yana was petrified. What was he going to do to her? Yana screamed again and the man climbing up the house shouted something back. The vampires smile quickly faded off his face. He cast a worried glance behind Yana.

'I thought you were braver than screaming' he tutted. 'Nevertheless. We must go now.' He seized Yana tighter and pulled her to the edge of the roof. For a moment the vampire did nothing, then Yana felt a tingling on her scalp. The noises of the night; the swish of rain hitting the tiles of the roofs; the wind whistling around her; the shouting of the crowd on the ground; faded into nothing. Yana looked around puzzled. Nothing had seemed to have happened, except for the strange lack of noise.

_Oh God, he's made me deaf!_ thought Yana fearfully.

She looked at the vampire holding onto her; but he was just standing there, with his eyes closed. Shouldn't he be fleeing from the man climbing up to them? Yana looked around, expecting to see him climbing up any second.

Nothing was happening. Nothing was moving.

Then a movememt caught her eye. Two houses away, someone was opening their window, to see what the fuss was about. Yana watched as the window opened slowly; very slowly infact. The woman slowly poked her head out of the window; the expression on her face changing from questioning, to anger, ludicrously slowly.

Then Yana noticed that the rain was no longer hitting her. Instead, the air was suddenly filled with tiny droplets; like a million stars hanging in space. The droplets were slowly falling to earth; but so slowly that Yana could have caught them all before they hit the roof. The droplets converged with eachother in mid air, split and danced around eachother in a silent ballet. The beauty of seeing each raindrop falling to earth, made her own eyes prickle with silent tears.

A moth slowly came round the side of a chimney, and Yana watched as it's wings slowly went up and down in a silent wave of silken beauty.

She noticed the vampire looking at her with an amused expression. He ran a hand through his blood red hair.

'Yes. I had forgotten how amazing it is.' he said softly 'After centuries of doing it, one forgets how magnificent it is to people who never experience it.'

'But what is it?' Yana asked in wonder. Too over-awed to remember to be scared of the vampire.

'Time. It is time. Just not as you know it.'

Yana didn't understand, but a thought suddenly occured to her.

'Is this why you are so quick?'

The vampire smiled even wider, looking positively wild. 'I knew you were smart. Too smart to be a street-rat. Yes, it is the reason for my. . . unusual speed. When I concentrate, I can make everything else around me move at such a slow pace that I appear as a blur in comparison.'

The top of the mans head suddenly started to clear the top of the roof.

'Quick, we must go.'

Yana suddenly remembered that the vampire had come running after her after she saw him. How the vampire had killed the old woman in her bed, and had tried to kill Fredrick Bones in the park. The wonder of the vampires time-trick had driven the danger from her mind, but now she remembered why she had been running away from him in the first place.

'No.' she said 'I won't go with a monster like you. I won't let you take my soul'

Yana struggled; kicking and pulling to free herself. The vampire started to look angry, which scared her even more. She eventually kicked him in the middle and he let go of her.

As soon as she let go of him, time returned to normal. The moth buzzed past her, and rain prickled her skin again. The night time noises all rushed back at once. She looked round for the vampire, but couldn't see him. The man who had climbed up to her saw her, and smiled.

Yana sighed with relief and started towards him. She was shaking with fear and her eyes twitched everywhere looking for the vampire. Maybe he had ran off.

Then her breath caught in terror, as she saw a purple blur suddenly dart across the roof. She caught a glimpse of an arm, a leg, before the super-quick vampire slammed into her. She couldn't beleive how quick he had been. She had expected to be able to see him moving, but all she could pick out was a blurry outline of him. Yana was suddenly picked up off her feet and whirled off through the night. She was being carried under his arm and she could see the town rushing past her. As the vampire stopped at the edge of a roof, he came back into focus. His eyes were blinking rapidly and his features kept jerking around. She knew he was still in the other time-state.

They suddenly started off again, accelerating faster than Yana could have thought possible. Wind whipped her hair around like a mass of writhing snakes and she had to squint her eyes against the rush of air, and her own hair, which was hitting her in the face.

She was terrified; scared witless. But she couldn't help feeling slightly exhillerated at how they were moving across the town. The vampire was moving so fast that it felt like they were flying across the town, not jumping across roofs. She thought how she would feel if she could do this. Fantastic. The thrill of the flight through the town wiped Yanas mind of all other feelings.

Eventually the vampire slowed down, and Yana could see where they were. They had left the houses, and bottle kilns behind, and trees surrounded then in the half-dark. Yana could see the town behind them like a stain on the green earth. Smoke was rising above it in the early hours of this morning. They were in the countryside that surrounded the town. The sky was starting to turn a light blue-grey, and Yana knew that dawn would be upon them in a few seconds. She looked to the vampire and saw him sweating. Obviously, it took effort to do that slowing-everything-down thing.

The vampire smiled at her wolfishly, and gestured to a cave nearby. Yana shook her head, and the vampires face darkened.

'You cannot run from me Yana' he said.

_How did he know my name?_

'You will come and hear what I have to say, or you will not live to see the next night'

Yana gulped, and had the mad urge to run away anyway, but she knew what the vampire said was true. She knew how fast he could be, and she knew she couldn't run away.

None of this made sense anyway. Why was she still alive now? The vampire should have caught her, drank her blood, and stole her soul. Thats what he had done to everyone else he had hunted. Yet now she thought of it, if he had been intent on killing her, wouldn't he have just done the super quick thing and caught her straight away, rather than chase her normal speed?

_Maybe he just likes playing with his food_, she thought darkly as she stepped into the vampires cave.

She walked in, with the vampire behind her, so she couldn't run back out. They walked on for a while, then cave twisted suddenly and she emerged into the vampires lair. She had been expecting a cold, dank, wet cave, with bats hanging from the ceiling, and stalagmites thrusting out of the ground like teeth. Instead she found a smallish cavern in the rock, with a dry sand floor and some furniture. The vampire lit a fire in the middle of the floor and Yana could see more of where the vampire lived. The orange glow from the fire illuminated one wooden chair, a sleeping area carved out of the rock wall, and two large urns. That was all. Obviously, the vampire was of simple tastes.

The vampire sat on the floor, warming his purple-skinned hands on the fire. He nodded towards the only chair.

'Sit' he said, and Yana noted that he said it as a request, not an order.

'Why am I here?' she asked. She no longer felt afraid of the weirdly-coloured man. If he had wanted to kill her, he could have done ages ago.

The vampire looked up. His red eyes reflected the fire on the ground, and made him look like something from the pit of hell.

_Which, he probably is_, thought Yana.

'Yana, who were your parents?'

The question caught her off balance and she stared at him.

'Yana. Did you know your parents?'

'W. ., well yes!' she spluttered. She then paused. 'Actually, I don't know who my father is; but I knew my mother.'

_Before she abandoned me, _she added silently.

The vampire didn't seem surprised. Instead he nodded grimly.

'Yana.' the vampire said. 'I have a question to ask you. But first I must explain a few things. One of those things is about vampires and vampaneze.'

Yana pricked up her ears.

'I am not a vampire; I am a vampaneze. Vampires are different to us, mostly in looks.' he smiled wryly. 'They look like normal human beings, whereas we look like this.' he gestured to his purple skin and red hair.

The vampire sighed. 'Many years ago, I was a human called Yerl. I was 5 when I became a vampaneze. I was 'blooded' when I was very young, and have therefore lived for many centuries to get to this age. We vampaneze age 15 times slower than humans. So for every 15 years our bodies age 1.

Most vampaneze are not evil, but we do kill when we drink, whereas vampires don't. We cannot help it; it is our nature to kill from those who we feed upon. Vampaneze consider this honourable, for when we drink all the blood from a person, we absorb part of their soul and their memories. Since we live longer than humans ever could, we see it as if we are giving those who we drink from a longer life than they could have had.'

Yana spluttered, by Yerl held up his hand. He carried on, this time more softly.

'I didn't want to become a vampaneze, but my mother made me.

She was a vampaneze and wished me to become like her, to carry on her legacy. You see, vampaneze cannot have vampanic children. But we can have human children. These children are called Vampese. They are not vampires, or vampaneze. The only way to become a creature of the night is to be infected with vampiric blood; but these children always. . . different. Most of them are blooded early anyway, to spare them the difficulty of living in the human world'

He paused.

'Even though I was born a human, I was tainted with vampaneze characteristics from my mother: strength, speed and agility that rivaled anything my peers could do; a love of the night . . .- '

Yana suddenly felt a chill creep up her spine and lodge in her heart. What he was describing sounded very similar to . . .

'- and a feeling that I didn't quite belong in the human world.'

Yana had started breathing fast. The vampire looked at her.

'Yana. I have been watching you for many nights. You have extraordinary agility. You spend most of your time in the night the happiest you have been. You are fast, and strong and have the ruthlessness to steal, but the honourablity to show pity to your victims.'

Yerl looked Yana in the eyes. Red eyes met Brown, and a connection formed between them.

Yana already knew what he was going to say before he said it.

'Yana. You are a vampese; and I am asking you if you would like to become, my apprentice.'

_Bingo_


	5. The Blooding

The room seemed to spin around Yana when the vampaneze had made his speech. Although she had been expecting what he was going to say before he had said it, it was still a massive shock. Her father; a vampire; or vampaneze.

'Was my father a vampire or a vampaneze, like you?' Yana asked, interested.

'He was probably a vampire' said Yerl slowly. 'Normally, the children of Vampaneze have ginger hair'

'And that won't affect me if I become a vampaneze?'

'No, you are not actually a vampire, but you do have certain. . . characteristics, about you that vampires have'

Yana struggled to comprehend all that had happened tonight. She had been hunting the vampaneze; she had been terrified of him; she had been kidnapped and taken to his cave, and then he had made an offer for her to become his assistant. So much had happened in the last 2 hours, it had felt like an age since she had been hunting the vampaneze on the rooftops.

His offer had first shocked Yana; but now she thought about it, wasn't this the thing that she had been daydreaming about for days? To become a near-immortal creature of the shadows? To be one, with the darkness of the night.

Yana suddenly felt a surge of excitement and fear.

She wanted this. She wanted to leave her humanity behind, and become a vampaneze. Yana-the-human was a dirty slum girl who had to steal and work in a dangerous bottle-kiln to scrape by in life, whose life meant nothing; but Yana-the-Vampaneze would be a brave, strong, immortal hunter, who answered to nobody and lived by herself. Even the colours of the vampaneze appealed to her. Her transformation to purple skin and red hair would confirm that she had begun a new life and further leave her humanity behind.

Yerl was still watching her. 'Maybe I better leave you to think about it, Yana' said the vampaneze gently, 'Our life is not to be taken lightly, and I would completely understand if you did not wish to join us. I will rest now, and I will wait your answer when I awaken at nightfall'

The Vampaneze went and lay down in the hollowed-out part of the wall, where he slept.

'If you are still here when I wake up, I will know you are ready to face becoming my assistant.' The vampaneze turned over and settled down.

'No. I don't need to think. I want to do it.' Yana said quickly to Yerl.

There was silence for a moment.

'Very well.' Yerls muffled voice came from the bed. 'But I will not blood you right now. If you are still sure; you will be here at sunset. Until then, I will sleep'

'OK then.'

The vampaneze's breathing became more regular and deeper and Yana knew that he was asleep. It occurred to her that she could kill him right now. If she sharpened one of the sticks that were in the dying fire and sneak up on him with her stake, she could drive it through his heart and kill him. Maybe Yana would have if she hadn't just spoken to him. She had seen that he wasn't just a mindless demon from hell; or a reanimated corpse hungry for blood. He seemed sincere about wanting her to become his apprentice and he seemed to care about her and what she thought of him. Surely Yerl couldn't be a heartless monster if he cared about what she thought; and he had explained how he had become a Vampaneze most truthfully. He didn't seem intent on drinking her blood, or have a mad desire to turn her into another monster.

Yana thought a little more about what Yerl had said about Vampaneze. They aged 15 times slower than humans, so they could live for; Yana did a calculation with difficulty; about 900 years! Depending on when they are blooded obviously, thought Yana. And they could slow down time. Yana shivered as she thought about that. What a thing to be able to do. She could watch lightning crawling down from the heavens to the Earth; like a river of molten gold.

Yana was ready to become a Vampaneze. She didn't want to remain a human anymore. There was nobody to miss her if she suddenly dissapeared, and she would have someone to guide her and take care of her if she became a Vampaneze.

Yana wondered what her father had thought when he had become a vampire, and why? Who had her father been? He had been a vampire, so Yerl said. Yana wanted to ask Yerl more about her father and vampires, but he was deep asleep. Yana didn't like the idea of becoming a vampire: to look like the ones you hunted; the creatures of the night should look like creatures of the night, Yana thought.

She looked around, and by the light of the dying fire she saw the exit of the cave. She decided to go outside to walk around.

As she left the cave the light of the sun made her squint. It was late morning. She should be at the bottle-kiln, but nobody would miss her; she just wouldn't be paid for that day. She looked around at the bright day. She would have to give this up when she became a vampaneze, they couldn't go out in the sunlight, but Yana didn't mind. As a vampese, she had always felt at home in the night, although she had never knew why until now. The day wasn't as exciting as the cold thrilling feeling of the night. The moon was much more appealing than the sun

She walked around the grass outside the cave for a bit, idly flicking the long stems of grass that prickled her legs. Yana felt strangely at peace. Her old life was ending, a new life was going to begin. Yerl was right, she didn't belong among humans, she was a Vampese, soon to be Vampaneze.

Yana had gone back inside the cave after milling around outside for a bit. Yerl was still asleep, and probably would stay like that until the night came. Yana lay down on the ground. For a while she couldn't get to sleep. A hailstorm of emotions was whirling around inside her. Fear and excitement were the strongest; Yana both feared the moment the Vampaneze woke up, because it would mean the time had come for her to be 'blooded', but she still felt a tingling excitement in her spine at the thought of the moment finally coming.

_Yana finally fell to sleep, to dreams of flying through the night, with the wind on her face. She looked down at herself, and her skin sheened with a purple light. She flew through the streets like a bird, tracking her prey. The man she was following was quick, but she was quicker. Darting through an alleyway, she headed him off. The man yelled with fear as he saw her. She jumped down on him and moved in to feed _-

Yana woke with a start. The Vampaneze was standing over her. He was smiling.

'So, you stayed. As I knew you would.' he was smiling approvingly 'You are a brave and honourable girl. You will make a fine Vampaneze.' He grinned 'I am also grateful you didn't kill me as I slept, as I'm sure you considered.'

Yana almost smiled back, but didn't feel like she knew him that well.

'Are we going to do it now?'

The vampaneze looked serious. 'Yes, Yana. If you are sure that this is what you want. I am sure you will be a fine assistant and Vampaneze; you are courageous and loyal and we need people like you; but if you do not wish to do this, then that is fine. I will respect your decision.'

Yana looked at Yerl. She bit her lip.

'This is what I want. I have always felt like I belong to something else than this life. I want to become a vampaneze. I know what the life will be like; but I feel this is something I was always meant for.'

The Vampaneze nodded somberly.

'OK then Yana. I must admit, I am glad that you are doing this. I have need of an assistant, and the vampaneze are in need of honourable people to join them. There are not as many of us than there are of vampires'

'How do we do this?' Yana asked. 'Do you bite my neck? Or kill me, and bring me back to life?'

Yerl eyes bulged with laughter. 'No!' he laughed.

Putting his right forefinger to his left palm, he made two long cuts with his nail across his hand, one just below his fingers, and one at the heel of his hand. Beckoning to Yana, he did the same to her; but on both of her hands. His nails sliced into her flesh, and she gritted her teeth. Blood oozed out of both of her palms. Yanas hands stung where he had cut them.

Yanas blood was dripping down her arm when Yerl came over. He placed his cut hand on her left hand, so that the wounds touched.

Yanas heart beat faster, and she suddenly felt light headed. She almost couldn't beleive that this was happening. She was becoming a vampaneze. Yana stiffened as she felt his vampanic blood flow up her arm. It felt weird, like a fish was swimming up her veins. As his blood went into her, her human blood exited her right hand through her cuts. The vampaneze held on for about a minute. There was a small puddle of blood next to Yana. It was her blood. Suddenly, Yerl pulled his hand away.

Yana was about to ask if that was it, when the vampanezes blood entered her heart. There was a clenching pain, as though somebody was squeazing her heart, and Yana staggered to the floor. Her body started twitched and she felt hot underneath her skin. Her hands curled and uncurled uncontrollably. Yana was about to scream, when the symptons stopped, as suddenly as they had came.

Yerls face swam over her, looking concerned.

'Are you OK? That was a rough blooding'

'Yeh, I think so.' Yana got to her feet shakily and wiped her hand of blood. 'Is that it now. Am I a vampaneze?'

'Not a full one. If you became a full vampaneze all at once, the shock to your body would probably kill you. You will notice the change to your body when you wake tomorrow.'

Yana nodded, then looked down at herself. She looked like she always had..

Yerl had seen her looking. He smiled. 'Your vampanic full colours will progress as you become a full vampaneze'

'When will that be?'

'Over time the vampaneze blood will thicken and purge your body of your human blood. When all the human blood has been converted, you will be a full vampaneze'

He pulled at his finger for a second until a ring came off.

'Here. This is a very unusual and valuable ring. I got it from my mother when I became a vampaneze. Put this on your finger. It will show you the progress of the transformation'

Yana took the ring from him. It just looked like a plain silver hoop. Yana put it on, and as she watched it sitting on her finger, she saw the silver turn gold, like ink spreading across a page. She watched the gold spread across the ring until it filled about a third of the rings surface.

'The gold shows the percentage of vampaneze blood in your veins.' said Yerl.

'So when it's completely gold, I'll be completely vampaneze.' whispered Yana looking at the ring in awe and facination.

'Thats right'

Yerl got up, looked at her, and smiled.

'So, how do you feel, Yana? My vampaneze apprentice.'

Yana struggled to explain her feelings, tried to form her words, but couldn't. Finally, she settled for a handshake.

Yerl shook it with a serious look in his eyes.

'Welcome to the clan, half-vampaneze'


	6. Old Faces

After the 'blooding', as Yerl called it, Yana suddenly felt bone-weary and had to lie down for a bit. Yerl told her not to worry.

'It's normal to feel drained afterwards' he had said 'You are turning from a human, to a half-vampaneze; it's bound to take a toll on your energy levels'

Nevertheless, Yana had felt extremely worried at her rapidly dwindling energy. She had never felt so helpless before, and it scared her to be at the mercy of someone else. She had staggered to the floor for the second time in an hour, and had to be rescued by Yerl, who had picked her up and placed her in a separate bed-space in a niche in the cave wall.

Yerl had looked over her, checked her eyes and pronounced that she would be fine after a sleep.

'Get some rest' he said 'I am going to go hunting. If you wake during the day tomorrow, feel free to go where you want. Just stay out of trouble, and be back before dark. We will be moving on to a different town. Your apprenticeship starts then.'

The arms of sleep wrapped around Yana and cradled her in it's fuzzy embrace. Darkness engulfed her, and she fell to sleep.

Yerl slipped out into the night.

Yana woke mid-morning the next day; in pitch darkness. She strained her eyes, but she couldn't see anything infront of her. Yana panicked for a minute as she struggled to place where she was. Was she blind? Then she remembered the blooding last night, and the weariness that had engulfed her afterwards. She felt much better now, but she wondered how she was going to get out of the cave, without being able to see where she was going. She could hear a man snoring somewhere near her.

_Must be Yerl_. _That means it's day time._

Yana sat up quickly, banging her head sickeningly hard on the cave roof .

'Argh' she gasped, rubbing her hand across her head. Normally, a bump that hard would have cut her head open, and raised a bruise the size of an egg; but Yana could feel no blood, and the pain went away after a few minutes.

Now that she looked around the cave, she could make out small details and shapes in the dark, like the big stone jars in the middle of the floor, and the exit. But how could she see that? She would have never been able to see that well in the darkness before. Obviously, her new vampaneze blood was starting to have an effect on her.

She got up and groped her way to the exit of the cave, her hands out infront of her like a blind beggar she had once seen. Although she had much better night vision than before, she bumped her shins on the chair on the way out and stubbed her toes on the remains of the dead fire.

Yerl had told her she could go and explore, as long as she didn't get into trouble. Yana didn't have any intention of doing that, but she did want to see the town again. For some reason, she wanted to say goodbye to the place she had grown up. It had been a tough and cruel place to grow up in, but it contained the history of human-Yana. Yana wanted to commit the place to memory before becoming the Vampaneze's apprentice. It would always have a special place in her heart and she knew she would never feed on the people in this town. They were her kin, whether they knew it or not.

When she got near to the end of the tunnel, she saw the outside world. Grass and trees were being tossed in a strong wind, and sunlight was lancing down on the ground from gaps in the clouds. Yana could feel the heat from the outside from the end of the tunnel; it was chilly inside the cave, although she hadn't realised how cold until she felt the sun outside.

Yana suddenly drew up short. Could she go outside? She was half-vampaneze. What if the sun killed her, or horribly burnt her skin? She knew Yerl couldn't go outside during the day, but he hadn't said anything about her. She felt a knid of panic inside her. She wasn't ready to give up the day just yet. She wanted to see her town one last time. Yana looked down at the ring on her finger. In the darkness, she could see that the gold still covered a third of the metal. It didn't look as though it had increased during the night. A third-vampaneze. Did that meen that she had to avoid the sunlight?

Surely, if she was still more human than vampaneze, then she could brave the sunlight and live? And anyway, Yerl had said that she could explore by herself; he must have been telling her she could go outside. What if it did kill her?

She took a deep breath; she closed her eyes. Yana stepped out of the cave, and flinched as the sun struck her.

She let out a shaky breath; there was no pain, and she was still alive. It seemed that the avoidance of the sun was something that would only come with her coming of full-blood. Yana felt strangely happy and relieved about this, considering that she prefered the night. She was assuaged that she could still enjoy the day, as well as the night; at least for now.

Yerl had taken her quite a way from the town and it took Yana a while to get back to it. Although, it gave her the chance to explore her new vampaneze powers. She was stronger than she used to be; as she dicovered when she pulled at a thick tree branch, which snapped off to her astonishment; and her balance was amazing. She could walk across the tree tops without having to fear falling. But what was most astonishing was her speed: she could run so quickly that her surroundings blurred into a stream of colours and indistinguishable shapes. She outstripped a sparrow whilst it was flying and could probably have caught it in midair, if she had wanted to.

As she got to the outskirts of the town, she could smell the mixture of smoke, food, and human waste that was the norm of her surroundings. But underneath the normal smells of a town, Yana could smell other things that no human could. A woman passed her, dragging seven children behind, who were all screaming and fighting to be free. Yana could somehow smell the emotions on the people; the woman was giving off a sour smell of frustration and anger towards her children, and the hot smell of sadness and terror was eminating from the youngsters. Yana didn't know how she knew which smells meant which emotions; but she did, as sure as she knew flowers smelt nice, and rotting food smelt bad.

It was incredible; and Yana was only half-vampaneze. What would it be like when she was a full one? Already Yana was discovering more about her world than she would have ever known if she had stayed a human. She could hear people talking in the house across the street; the soft squelching noise of a dog wandering the muddy streets 4 streets away; the pounding of somebody's heart walking next to her.

The thought of the persons heart suddenly stopped Yana in her tracks. Their heart; their blood swirling around their body. Yana felt no desire to drink anybodies blood yet, but she knew that she would have to drink some day. The cost of being a vampaneze.

Shaking herself of such morbid thoughts, she turned into a street that would take her to her stomping ground. Looking around first, to check that nobody was looking, she ran down the street as quickly as she could to the bottle-kiln she used to work at. The houses around her blurred, and the wind rushed into her face; whipping her long blonde hair back. Yana relished the feel of her muscles and sinews working in perfect harmony to create a fluid running motion. It was like a river of energy was flowing through her body; charging her up with power and strength. She reached the bottle-kiln gates in 5 minutes, whereas it would have taken her half an hour to get there before she had become a half-vampaneze.

She stopped outside the gates. To anyone looking, it would have looked like she had suddenly appeared there.

She peered into the factory courtyard. There was nobody there. Surely it wouldn't hurt to just go and see the people she used to work with. See them for one last time. She should have been here hours ago, but if she sneaked in, she would probably get away with it.

The gates were locked, but she quickly climbed over them and scurried over to the factory. She peered into the window. It was hard to see past the grime and soot on the window, and it was murky inside, so it took a while to be sure what was happening. Then she saw a small, brown haired boy that she had been talking to a few weeks ago. What was his name? She thought for a minute. Something from the Bible. . . Peter!

Grinning, she went into the factory. Obviously, his team had been put onto machine mantainance today, since they were bobbing and weaving inbetween the swinging arms of the clay mixers; oiling and tighening different parts of the machine. She watched Peter jump into the mixing bowl, and srub part of the barrel. They usually made small 5 year olds like him do that, since you needed small fingers.

'Hey, Peter!' Yana yelled.

Peter jumped out of the barrel and started at Yana.

'Where have you been Yana?' Peter seemed to be white with fear and shock.

'I've just been. . . why?' she said, sensing something was wrong. Peter looked releived and terrified at the same time.

'You didn't turn up for work yesterday or today. We all thought you had been caught by the vampire.' Peter whispered.

'No. I had the flu.'

'Oh. You're OK now though?'

'Yeh. Whats been happening here?'

'Oh. You know, just the usual. Working on the machines. Did a few other jobs yesterday. Oh, and you know Emma?'

Yana nodded.

'Well, she lost a finger doing kiln work. Got it crushed in a grinder. Lost the ring as well. Do you remember? The one she got from the maid who saw the vampire?'

'Oh, yeh' said Yana uncomfortably.

Peters eyes flicked to the gold and silver ring on her finger, but he didn't say anything.

By now, the other children working on the machines had gathered around.

'Did you hear? The vampire took another person last night. An old lady who lived in the terraced part of the town'

The children shared ominous glances. Most of them lived in that area.

'My brother is going to lead a hunt for the vampire tonight' piped in an extremely small mousey-haired boy. 'Him and a bunch of other men are going to hunt the vampire down with dogs and drive a stake through his heart'

'How will they know who the vampire is?' said a girl listening.

'They've got a peice of his clothes. The dogs'll sniff him out. Anyway, all vampires have scars on their hands. Most of the have it on their finger tips, but some have them on their palms' said the boy knowledgeably.

Yana convulsively flexed her hands at that comment. The two scars on her hands were still still pink and raised and very noticeable. It had been a mistake to come here. She was so close to been found out. Yana curled her hands into fists so that they wouldn't show. Peter looked at Yana quickly, and frowned.

'Whats the matter Yana?' said Peter

Yana flushed 'Nothing. I've just remembered something I've got to do. Erm. . . it's been nice seeing you, but I've got to go now. Kiln maintainence.' she muttered distractedly.

She had to warn Yerl of the hunt tonight, perhaps they could escape before it happened and move on quickly.

'But you only just got in; and you came here' said Peter getting more suspicious.

'Yeh, well. I've got to go now. Is that OK with you, Peter!' Yana snarled. Her voice seemed even more scary than usual.

Peter backed off, suddenly frightened of the older girl.

'You look different Yana' said Peter 'I don't know what it is about you, but you don't look right'

'Shut up, Peter' she snapped.

'No. What are you hiding?'

'Nothing' Yana yelped, panicked.

She turned to leave quickly, but Peter grabbed hold of her wrist. Quickly, without thinking, Yana ddi what she always did when somebody in the slums tried to grab her. She held Peters wrist back, and quickly twisted up. It had always made people let go before. This time, it was different. It made him let go alright, but, this time there was a horrible crunching noise, and Peter leapt back howling with pain. His right hand was hanging at a sickening angle on his arm. With her new vampaneze strength, Yana had accidently broken his wrist.

Peter howled, and the other children gasped and backed away.

'Nobody is that strong' whispered a girl nearby.

Yana held up her hands, to show that she hadn't meant any harm, but in doing so, she showed the children her palms.

Time seemed to freeze. But this time it wasn't Yerl, it was Yanas fear and the other childrens shock. Yana's scarred palms were displayed for all to see.

Cursing herself. Yana turned and ran as fast as she could out of the factory. She heard the other children gasp at her speed. She must look just like a blur to them. She ran fast out of the factory doors, but before she was out of earshot she heard Peter.

'She's the vampire. Yanas the vampire!' he screamed 'We're gonna get you Yana, were going to get you!' Then he disolved into pained howls and sobs.

Yana sped through the town, not caring about who saw her. She needed to get back to Yerl. 'Don't get in trouble' Yerl had said. Well, Yana wasn't making a very good apprentice so far.


	7. The Other Vampese

Yana sped home, with the breath of fear behind her, giving her strength. She remembered the way that Peter had looked at her vampaneze scars. The hatred had been clear on his face, but what disturbed her most was the _fear_ she had seen. Peter had been truly scared of her, and that made Yana more uncomfortable than anything else ever had. She knew that she was not a monster, but how could she convince others? They would flee the moment they knew what she had turned into.

Although it was her first day of being a half-vampaneze, Yana stretched her new powers of speed to their maximum. Not matter how fast she was going, it still took a couple of hours to get back to Yerls cave. The sun was an orange half-circle sinking below the horizon when she arrived, panting with fatigue, at the cave. The clouds in the sky were painted a light pink colour, and shadows from the grass stretched across the ground like tendrils of darkness across the ground.

When she arrived at the cave, she stopped for a minute to regain her breath. It had taken a lot of energy to run all the way here, despite her vampaneze endurance and speed; and she was sure that some people had seen her speed by. Hopefully, all they had seen was a blond blur.

Her breath suddenly caught as she saw the purple-skinned Yerl walk out of the cave. He had a small bag on his back; he was dressed in brown trousers and a black cape was strung across his shoulders, whispering along the grassy ground. His red hair looked like a vibrant bloody-coloured flame on his head in the evening setting sun. He smiled at Yana as he saw her.

'I've been waiting for you, Yana' he said briskly. 'It's time to move out of this town, and head off for new adventures. Are you ready?'

Yana stared at him wordlessly. She didn't know what to think about him anymore. According to the factory workers, 6 people had been killed last night, 3 of whom had been drained of their blood. Was the killer standing infront of her now? Yana knew that he had to kill and drink blood to survive, but the callous, unesessary murder of the 6 people that hadn't even been fed on, didn't seem to suit Yerl. Yana didn't want to beleive that it was Yerl. She was going to be his apprentice, and he seemed to be a creature of honour and dignity. Not a monster.

Yerl seemed to know that something was wrong.

'What has happened Yana' he said, peering at her intently.

Yana took a breath. She felt a little nervous, and some of the old fear of the vampaneze was creeping back into her. Quickly, afraid she would lose her nerve if she stopped, she told Yerl all that had happened that day. Going into town. Meeting her work colleagues. The discovery of her identity. Finally, the news of the 6 murders.

Yerl had listened quietly for most of the story with a slight frown on his face; but when he heard about the murders he made a strangled gasp.

'Six murders!' he seemed genuinely shocked.

'So it wasn't you?' Yana asked, suddenly relieved.

He stared at her.

'Of course it wasn't me. I, and all other vampaneze, do not kill needlessly. And I _never_ feed on children.'

Yana was so releived to hear that, that she sighed with relief and her legs shook with gratitude.

Yerl seemed to be considering something. He stroked his red-hair as he thought, and his bloody eyes shifed left and right.

'This murderer is out of his mind. There is no question of that. If it was merely a starving vampaneze or vampire, then all the bodies would have been drained. It seems they have been killed for fun, or to finish off the job. Killing all the people in the house would have appealed to a mad killer'

He stroked his ear as he thought. He seemed to talk to himself.

'The murderer could be a mad vampaneze. But I haven't heard of any of our brothers going mad. Or of course, it could be. . . but no. . . stop to it. . .' Yerl trailed off into indistinct muttering for a minute, then seemed to remember that Yana was there.

'Sorry, Yana. I've been alone for so long, that I talk to myself when I think. I keep forgetting I have an apprentice now.' he smiled. 'I was just thinking about these murders. They are either murders of an insane vampaneze, or an extremely twisted human. I do not wish to be involved in this town more than I have to, but I cannot let these senseless murders happen again. We vampaneze do not kill our brothers who have lost thier minds. If it is a mad vampaneze, I will have to drive him off. However, if it is the mad human -'

Yerls eyes suddenly seemed to widen, and his red irises caught the last of the setting sun, making them gleam with a mad, unearthly light.

'- I will kill the twisted scum, and rid the world of a great evil. I cannot let the human continue doing this. It's causing trouble for vampaneze. People panicking. Forming mobs to hunt the wrong culprits down'

'What human?'

Yerl looked at her. 'It is too long to go into detail right now. But all I will say, is that I think I know who the murderer may be. If I am thinking of the right person, he is a vampese, like you used to be.'

Yerl paused and looked troubled.

'Normally when a person has a parent who was a vampire or vampaneze, they turn out fine; like you did, just a bit, different. However, years ago, I met a Vampese who had been turned mad by his vampire tainted blood. I met him in a place far from here. He is a human, but he is convinced he is a vampire. He has tried to convince others to blood him, but they have all seen the madness in him and turned him away. He kills other humans and drinks their blood, convinced that he will make himself a vampire by doing these things. He is a twisted, evil person, but he is to be pitied. He cannot help who he is. It is his destiny to be so.'

'But, why didn't you kill him when you met him the first time?'

'I tried. I wounded him; fatally I thought, and I left him to die. But at the final moment, when it came to the killer blow, I found I couldn't kill such a pathetic creature. It would not have been honourable to murder a human as confused and mad as him. I left him to fate.'

Yana's stomach contracted with dread. Such talk of mad, twisted humans, and diabolical evil, was disturbing to her.

'Of course' said Yerl, doubt clear in his voice, 'It could not be him'

'But you don't think that.' said Yana quietly.

'No.' Yerl sighed heavily 'I am sure that this is the work of the vampese. No vampaneze or vampire would ever do a thing like this. Unless they went insane. But none of our brothers have sucumbed to madness, as far as I know.'

Yana nodded. Then thought. 'Why do you call all vampaneze 'brothers'. Are there no female vampaneze?'

Yerl smiled slightly. 'There have been female vampaneze in the past. But I beleive you are the first one for over 300 years. Females do not make as good creatures of the night as males do; normally. However, there are some female vampires. About 5, at the moment, I beleive.'

Yerl started pacing.

'We cannot leave the town tonight. I must put an end to this killer; it is my duty.'

'But what about the hunt for you tonight?'

'It will complicate things, but I can avoid a mob of humans easily. It has been a long time since a mob actually caught a vampaneze or vampire. Usually, they just go after some weird looking human, and kill them instead.'

The sun had fully set now, and Yerl looked more comfortable.

'I thought I might not be able to go out in the sun, earlier' commented Yana noticing him relaxing in the dark.

'No, you will be able to face the suns rays until you are a full-vampaneze like me. Even then, it takes a little less than an hour for the sunlight to kill me'

Yana looked down at the ring on her finger. The gold portion still covered a third of the ring but, if Yana looked closely, she could see that the gold had crept along the metal even further, maybe the space of a hair, during the day.

'Are we ready then?' said Yerl, watching her look at her ring.

'Lets go vampese hunting!'

They agreed to split up when we got to the town. Yana could be mistaken for a human, since she still looked like one; but Yerl, with his purple skin and red hair and eyes, couldn't be mistaken for anything but a creature of the night. She was still a little dissapointed that she didn't have the vampaneze colourings yet; she wanted to feel like a proper vampaneze, but at least she could help with the hunt better like this. She would search on the ground, moving amongst the humans, looking for the vampese, whilst Yerl would explore the roofs and peer into windows. Yerl had told her what to look for.

He would smell slightly different to ordinary humans, because of his vampese blood, and his scent would be laced with heightened emotions and mingled with madness.

Yana walked along the streets of the town; her face covered by a hood and cloak she had borrowed from Yerl. It was too big for her, but it would have to do; she couldn't risk anybody recognising her. Above her, she saw the shadow of Yerl flit away across the rooftops. She hoped he would be OK. She was starting to like the vampaneze, and she needed him to teach her about being one of his kind.

People looked at Yana curiously as she past, but their attentions were quickly diverted by something else. A person hiding their face was not an uncommon thing in the town at this time of night.

Usually, there would be nobody in the streets at this hour, and Yana was therefore surprised when she saw women standing outside their houses, watching as groups of men walked past in huddles. Children were tagging along with the men, carrying knives and sticks. Yana could smell the fear, anger and excitement on each person. She past one of the groups of men, and saw their eyes, starting from their heads, and wide with a nervous anger. There were all carrying weapons, and were talking about the murders. This was the beginning of a mob. The slightest spark, and they would go up like a haybarn on fire.

She carried on through the streets for a bit. The night was getting cold, but that didn't bother her; she loved cold nights. The people passing her were getting more and more agitated, They wanted action; a chance to kill a vampire.

She stopped to listen and smell; she could smell humans; their fear was strong on the air, and dominated the night air. Beneath that, the normal smells of the town. She focussed her senses. Suddenly, she caught a scent that she hadn't ever come across before; as a human or a vampaneze. Underneath the soup of smells, she caught one that was strange to her. It smelled sort of like Yerl did, but different, and much weaker. It smelled human, but not human at the same time. This must be the vampese she was looking for.

She looked around. There were people everywhere, so she had to run at a normal speed. It was agonisingly slow, even though she was running faster than she used to when she was a human. The mad vampese could be killing someone right now, and she would never know. She followed the scent of the not-human like a ribbon through the air, leading her along the streets. The streets got increasingly quiet as she got closer to her quarry, and soon, she was in a part of the town where nobody walked the streets. Either they had all gathered at one point somewhere else, or the residents of this part of town weren't interested in the troubles of somewhere else.

Seeing that she was alone in the streets, Yana pulled her hood back to be able to see her surroundings better. The scent of the not-human was coming from the house across the street from her. Turning her head, Yana concentrated her hearing on the house. For a minute she couldn't hear anything, then sounds filtered down to her. What she heard made her blood chill, and her stomach clench.

Anguished sobs and whimpers were coming from the house. It sounded as though it was a small child. And underneath that, was the horrible, unmistakeable sound of liquid being lapped up; like a dog drinking water. The smell of blood suddenly hit Yanas senses; it both excited and repulsed her. Her vampaneze-blood suddenly hungered within her, but she knew that what was happening in that room was wrong and needed to be stopped, and that took precidence over everything else.

Now that she had found the vampese, she signalled Yerl by whistling hard, three times, as high pitched as she could. She waited in the darkness for the vampaneze to turn up. A minute past, then two minutes, then five. He still hadn't turned up. He had said he would be able to hear her. The noises inside the house were becoming less and less audible. The sobs were becoming quieter and the childs breathing was slowing down. The drinking noise continued.

Yana couldn't just stand there and let it happen. She felt a strong desire to use her powers for good. She had been given super-strength, speed and agility. She had a duty to use them to stop this needless killing. No human could stand against her anyway; no matter how strong he was, her vampaneze powers would overcome him. Creeping foward, she quickly climbed the house wall and slipped in through the top window. It was dark in the house, but her night-vision quickly kicked in. It was a nicely decorated room; with wallpaper on the walls, and an ornate mirror hanging over the bed. The occupants of this house must be quite well off.

She gave a cursory glance at the bed. Then she froze. In the dark, the bedsheet looked white. The bedsheet was ruffled, messed up, and feathers were lying around it like snow, but that wasn't what had made her freeze.

The bedsheet had a large black stain in the middle of it. She couldn't see in the dark, but she was sure if she had a light, the stain would be blood-red. Yana felt sick. Now that she looked, a dark stain went from the bed, across the floor, and towards the door, like a snake of blood across the floorboards. The body must have been dragged out of the room.

Following the blood-stain out of the room, Yana entered a dark and dusty corridor. The carpet below her feet muffled her footsteps, and Yana could listen to the noises coming from the room below. There was silence for a minute, then Yana heard the soft mumbling of a man, talking to himself, and the frightened squeaking of a child. Hurrying downstairs, Yana found her way to the room where the noises were coming from. She stood infront of the door. The smell of the vampese was coming from behind the door. But it was weird. He didn't smell like any kind of human she had ever met. He smelt sort of like vampaneze, but sort of not. The smell reminded her of something from long ago.

The door stood infront of her. It's dark wood hiding the scene of death inside. It was dark, and Yana could barely see anything in the corridor. She was scared, but she knew what had to be done. She just wished Yerl was here. Going in alone, with no idea what she was going to do when she was inside, seemed like foolishness to her. However, she couldn't wait for him. A child was being murdered unessessarily, and she had to do something. She took a breath and opened the door.

The hinges creaked as she pushed the door open, and she winced. Yana was sure the person in the room would have heard that. She opened the door quickly, and rushed into the room, hoping to surprise the vampese.

There was a figure on the floor, lying still. The child was already dead, his glazed eyes staring into space. Yana felt the stare of the dead boy burning into her, keeping her paralized. Two other bodies lay in other parts of the room. The stench of blood was overpowering and Yana gagged.

The moment that Yana gagged, she heard a rustling noise behind her; she felt something colide with her from behind and she went tumbling to the floor. A dark shape was crouching above her as she scrambled on the carpet. Her assailant was punching every inch that he could get to. Yana smelt the strange smell of the vampese as he powered his fist into her jaw. Stars popped infront of her eyes. Why had she been so stupid? She had just walked in helpless and hadn't paid attention to her surroundings. She tried to fight back, and managed to strike him on the face, drawing blood. Her attacker snarled like an animal and headbutted her. Yana's forehead felt in had been cracked open and she lay there, dazed, unable to think about anything but the pain in her head. The man, seeing her helpless, and perhaps thinking that she had been knocked out, got off her and stood up.

In the weak light from a lamp outside, Yana saw that he was a human, but he looked like a demon. He looked about 20 years old. His hair was a fiery ginger colour and he had drawn circles on his cheeks with the blood of the dead. His eyes burned with a madness that was plain to see. But what was most disturbing about his appearance was his mouth. He had filed his teeth down to make them pointed and sharp; and blood from the dead child dripped over his lips and down his chin, but he seemed not to notice. He saw Yana was looking at him and smiled, licking his lips with a vibrantly-red tongue.

He bent over her, his face above hers. A drop of blood from his mouth fell onto her face.

'Hello, little girl'


	8. Confrontation

The Vampese eyes bored into her own and she could clearly see the insanity twisting and writhing in his eyes.

"Well. Were have you come from my little beauty?" He paused, and quickly shifted his eyes around, searching the room. He reminded Yana of nervous, twitchy wolf after a kill. "No matter. You will die like the rest of your ilk"

He reached down with his hand and quickly made a cut with his fingernails on Yana's neck, just below her chin line. The cut stung, and Yana's vampaneze-laced blood dripped down her neck. With horror Yana realised he was going to attempt to drink her blood as well. He probably didn't know she was a half-vampaneze; her hair and skin looked normal enough.

Yana almost smiled to herself. Time to do something he wouldn't expect.

Quickly, as he leered down at her, she snaked her arm up to the collar of his shirt, gripped the fabric and jerked her arm down and back with her new unnatural strength.

Yana felt a surge of satisfaction as the man was pulled head over heels, landing sprawled on her legs with a muffled thump.

Yana quickly kicked out at him, sending him rolling across the room, and scrambled to her feet.

The man snarled and rose off the floor like a rearing snake. Yana saw that she had ripped his shirt in the process of throwing him off and almost gasped as she saw the long puckered scar that curved up from his belly-button, across his chest and ended at his right shoulder.

It looked like a ghostly-white centipede that had crouched on his body to feed off his flesh.

Yerl had tried to gut this man like pig.

Yana briefly wondered why Yerl was taking such an interest in this human. Surely Vampaneze don't have that many encounters with a single human, even if he was mad.

The man suddenly surged towards her, cutting off further thought. He was hobbling on one foot, possibly sprained.

Yana instinctively crouched, preparing her muscles for a fight, as she had done many times in the slums. As a woman, it was especially important to know how to defend yourself.

Just as the man was about to collide with her, and enter into the bloody scrap that would be sure to follow, the windows in the room suddenly exploded inwards, pieces of glass spiralling into the room. The man, half turned in surprise and collided into Yana.

His shoulder caught her in the throat, and for the second time in the last half hour, Yana fell to the floor with the Vampese on top of her.

Twisting around underneath him she desperately looked towards the windows and caught sight of a dark shadow flitting across the light coming from the window.

Yerl seemed to appear in the corner of the room, solidifying from the blur that time-alteration had made him. His purple skin blended in with the darkness of the room, and all Yana could see of him was a dark shape, with blood-red eyes staring from his face.

"Leave her, Myolit" Yerl spoke, showing his white teeth in the dark. "She is vampaneze. Her blood will kill you."

The man, Myolit's, eyes seemed to bulge in their sockets.

"Yerl", he whispered. He quickly scrambled up from Yana and backed away, stroking the scar that marred his body compulsively.

"You won't hurt me" he spat suddenly, contemptuously. "You can't. You won't"

Yerl's face tightened and he stepped forward, into the illumination from the window, through which the cold night air was now curling through, chilling Yana as she stood up slowly, watching Yerl approaching Myolit. They were now standing in a triangle shape, with Yerl closing the gap on Myolit.

Yerl's cloak flapped around him and rose up his body like smoke as he passed by the window, revealing a belt of knives strapped around his chest, glinting like cold shards of ice in moonlight.

Myolit tensed, reaching for a knife of his own.

Yerl passed Yana, and as he did, he stopped suddenly. Myolit frowned and looked at Yana. His eyes gleamed and he drew the hand holding his knife back quickly.

Suddenly, with a grunt, Yerl sprang towards Yana and snared her by her shoulders, taking her by surprise. Yana shrieked, and instinctively tried to beat off her master, fearing he had gone mad and was trying to attack her.

Then, as she struggled with the Vampaneze, Yana's scalp tingled again, like she was carrying knits (a feeling she knew only too well). Then, once again, like before, on the rooftop the first night she met Yerl, she sensed the world slowing around her, and a muffling deafness descended around her and Yerl. He had once again slowed down the passage of time.

She stopped struggling with Yerl, allowing him to place a hand on her shoulder to keep her within his time-stream.

"Sorry" she gasped to Yerl "I thought. . ."

Yerl nodded, and smiled tightly in reply. "I shall never harm you Yana. You need not fear me"

Feeling foolish, Yana nodded, and looked around at Myolit.

The human had thrown his knife across the room, and as she looked, it slowly corkscrewed threw the air, on a direct collision course with her. Lamp-light from outside slid across it like gold waves as it passed though dark and light patches in the room. This time thing really was very beautiful, Yana thought to herself.

Reaching out, Yana scooped the knife from the air, feeling the handle slowly slipping into her hand, like a blind bird colliding with her palm.

Yana could see Myolit's eyes slowly revolve to look at the two vampaneze standing near him, who must only look like two blurs to him, thought Yana.

The human turned slowly to face them and dark expressions of twin rage and jealousy spread across his face. The exaggerated slow movements of his face were almost comical, if they weren't so terrifyingly intense, or directed at her. For it was she who he hated the most, Yana realised, even though he had only known her for so little time.

She had become what he craved to be: a creature of the night, and he would always hate her.

Gripping the knife, Yana prepared to fling it towards Myolit, who was now starting to leap forwards, flailing like a man under water towards them, his screaming silenced by the slow-time effect.

A sharp pain at her shoulder stopped her short. Yerl was squeezing her shoulders. He seemed to be struggling with himself.

"No, Yana" he finally gasped out. "I cannot let you kill him"

Yana stared incredulously at him.

"But, you said . . ."

"Please Yana. I will explain later. I cannot hold this time-stream for long. We must go, now!"

Yana tensed her hand, preparing to throw anyway, then hesitated, seeing the strain and desperation in Yerl's gaze.

She nodded, furious and confused, and dropped the knife, briefly watching it fall the speed of an airborne leaf, to the ground.

Yerl nodded, then gestured for her to get on his back. Together, they leaped out of the smashed window into the dark street.

As soon as Yerl had put a few empty cobbled streets behind them and Myolit, he stopped and released Yana.

The sounds of the night rushed back as they returned to normal speed. The dark wind whistled through the streets, and a few streets away, they could hear the mad screaming of Myolit, even from this distance, blending with the demented howling of the wind.

Yana rounded on Yerl.

"Why on earth did you let that monster live!" she screamed furiously "We could have killed him then! We could've stopped him."

Yerl was panting, and sweat dripped off his purple face from the exertion of time-bending, but he drew himself up to his full height, and faced Yana, his fearsome red eyes boring into her own, until she had to look away. Suddenly Yana was afraid that she had gone too far. Yerl was still quite scary and she still didn't know him that well.

However, when Yerl spoke, he was quiet and distracted. He seemed to be listening to something else.

"Yana." he said hurriedly "You are my apprentice and you will not speak to me that way. I have said I will explain, and I shall. A vampaneze always keeps his word."

His expression turned grim.

"But I think we have a bigger problem right now. Listen. Don't you hear?"

Yana strained to listen, swallowing her questions. She could hear amazingly. The snuffling of a woman in a nearby house, the fluctuating sound of the ever changing wind. She listened closer, pushing her hearing into fox-like ranges.

Then, from far away, but getting closer, she could hear the slap and thud and patter of many different sized feet hitting the cobbled pavement; the barely noticeable crackle of burning wood and the low murmur and occasional harsh laugh of scared, angry humans, spoiling for violence.

The city's Vampire-Hunt had begun.


End file.
